


now we see each other plain

by exbeekeeper



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Dimilix Week (Fire Emblem), Dimilix Week Day 5: Blood/Confessions, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-19
Updated: 2020-02-19
Packaged: 2021-02-28 04:33:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,044
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22797871
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/exbeekeeper/pseuds/exbeekeeper
Summary: Dimitri is gravely wounded in a skirmish with bandits on the trade route. Felix doesn't want to know what he's going to say if he only wants to say it when he thinks he's going to die.
Relationships: Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd/Felix Hugo Fraldarius
Comments: 5
Kudos: 75





	now we see each other plain

**Author's Note:**

> i had a whole plan to do all of dimilix week and this is all ive got to show for myself.... F. y'all might get some more stuff like two months from now but in the meantime take this. title is from "friends with you" by the scary jokes

When Felix is thirteen, just a few months before the tragedy takes the two most important people in his world from him in one fell swoop, Glenn asks him a question, while out riding in the woods behind the palace in Fhirdiad, that will define much of the next decade of his life. 

Felix is sprawled on the forest floor, clutching at his elbow in pain, the ripe red apple he’d been straining for having fallen next to him. Glenn, bandaging the bloody scrape on his knee with the torn hem of his shirt, has just asked him: _what was so special about that apple?_ and Felix has replied: _they’re Dimitri’s favorite._

Glenn rocks back on his heels and stands, shushing Felix’s horse as it startles. He gives Felix a discerning look. Although his brother is only seventeen, to Felix he is a real adult, and so Glenn’s silent judgement rankles. Felix’s hackles raise. 

“What?” he says, testily, “what’s _that_ look for?” 

Glenn chuckles and looks away. “Nothing. Don’t worry about it, kiddo.” 

Felix glares. “Glenn!” 

“Alright, alright,” and there’s that look again, making Felix shrink under its weight, “Just… you really love him, huh?” 

Felix’s eyes screw up in distaste and he pulls his knee out of Glenn’s grasp, wiping the blood from his mouth with a sleeve. “I don’t know what you mean.” Felix stands, spits the last of the blood onto the ground, and stalks away. 

Glenn puts his hands up in surrender and then turns away, takes a minute to calm the horses enough that they can ride home. About ten minutes into the ride, Glenn speaks up again. “Hey.”

Felix grunts in response. 

“If I could go back and tell you what would happen before you climbed that tree, would you still do it?” 

Felix considers this. He looks down at the shiny red apple, bouncing with his horse’s steps in her saddle pack. He thinks of Dimitri’s smile, wide and carefree when Felix manages to swallow his pride long enough to show he cares. His grip tightens on the horse’s reins. 

“Yeah,” he says, softly, perhaps hoping if he says it quietly enough it won’t have to be true, “I think I would.” 

Another few moments. Felix looks over at his brother and finds him staring knowingly back. Glenn’s normally easy-going expression has twisted into something unreadable. 

“Fe,” Glenn says very slowly, “what else do you think love is?” 

Felix didn’t have an answer for him then. He’s not sure he does now. 

Two months have passed since the battle of Gronder Field and they’re routing fucking bandits in the forest half a mile from the monastery when Dimitri gasps, blood gurgling in his throat, “Felix, I have to tell you something.” 

It might be better if it were a more monumental occasion, but Felix can’t bring himself to think of a battle grand enough that Dimitri’s death on its field would be a triumph for the Kingdom. They need him – Dimitri is the symbol of hope for the old guard and the new warriors alike, the savior king of the royal bloodline, but bearing the humanizing gauntness of his five years alone in the wilderness. He is larger than life. In two hundred years they’ll tell all his stories and they’ll get everything wrong. The Dimitri of those stories will be seven feet tall with glorious golden tresses and a bejewelled, gold-embroidered eyepatch. 

The Dimitri that’s here with Felix now is braced against him on the forest floor, desperately grasping at the fresh wound that gapes in his chest. His hair is matted and dirty blond at best and he’s lost both his eyepatch and his hair tie so it’s falling into his face. Ingrid’s gone to get help so all Felix can do is wait for her to return with Mercedes or Annette or anyone who can possibly help. 

They’re separated from the rest of the group and the bandits are all dead. There is, on paper, no danger to be found here. Except that of course there is, because Dimitri is coughing blood onto Felix’s shoulder and Felix wants so badly to be of use to him but he has no idea how. He curses his teenaged self for his sneering disdain of the study of faith because now there’s nothing he can do about his king’s rasping, choking breaths. 

“Felix,” Dimitri gasps again, “I–” 

“Shh,” Felix says, “Don’t talk, you’ll make it worse.” Dimitri shudders and collapses in on himself. Felix catches him and lowers him into his lap, looking helplessly around. “Ingrid,” he mutters, “where the hell are you?” 

Dimitri’s chest heaves. Felix starts unbuckling his chestplate, thinking maybe that if he can get Dimitri’s damaged armor off him he’ll be able to staunch the bleeding, or at least get a better sense of how screwed they are. 

“Hah,” Dimitri says, and Felix can’t tell if it’s a laugh or a wheeze of pain or both. “Oh, Felix, Felix. I never – I never thought I’d be able to say this. I thought it was impossible that you – that we –”

Felix can feel his face heating up. “Shut it, Dimitri,” he mutters, finally getting the last buckle to click and pulling the chestplate up and over Dimitri’s head. He groans in pain, and it’s a long moment before he returns to himself enough to speak again. Felix busies himself tearing a strip of cloth off his tunic and pressing it to Dimitri’s wound. 

A thin line of blood dribbles from the corner of Dimitri’s mouth. His eyes are glassy and unfocused, and when he reaches his hand up to cup Felix’s face he misses twice before finally settling his palm on the line of Felix’s jaw, his thumb catching on Felix’s bottom lip. Felix inhales sharply. 

“Felix,” he says, “please. I– I need to say this, I don’t know how much time–”

“Shut _up_ , Dimitri,” Felix grinds out. Dimitri falters, looking confused. “It– you’re not going to fucking die, okay? I won’t let you. So don’t– don’t tell me that right now. I don’t want to hear it if you’re only saying it because you think it’s your last chance.” 

Dimitri’s eyes fall shut. “Okay,” he says, chest heaving, “Okay, Felix.” 

Felix nearly cries with relief when he sees Ingrid cresting over the trees on her pegasus. Annette is sitting behind her with a death grip on Ingrid’s waist but as soon as they’re close enough to the ground for the fall not to be deadly Annette’s letting go and jumping down to the ground, ignoring Ingrid’s squawks of protest. 

Annette is dropping to her knees on Dimitri’s other side in an instant and she gently moves him from Felix’s lap without sparing Felix himself a second glance. Feeling suddenly very foolish, Felix rocks back on his heels as Annette fires up a Fortify. Eventually the frustration at his own uselessness in this situation gets the better of him, and he moves across the clearing to whisper quietly to Ingrid. 

“How are things back on the battlefield?” 

Ingrid gives him a sympathetic look. “Things are okay,” she says. “The last of the bandits ran down the hill. Sylvain and Ashe chased after them. Everyone else is okay, Dimitri’s the only one who wound up injured. Byleth’s on their way here.” 

Felix nods and looks back at Annette and Dimitri. Annette meets his gaze steadily. “He’s gonna be okay,” she says, gesturing at Dimitri, and following her gesture Felix can see that he is already looking better, more full of life. His breathing has evened out, and though his eyes are closed Felix is somehow not worried – where before he had looked about to knock at death’s door, now Dimitri really does look like he could be asleep. 

Ingrid’s gaze flickers to Felix’s face. “I’m going to take him back to the monastery. Felix, can you go help Sylvain and Ashe with the stragglers, please?” 

Although Felix feels sick to his stomach at the thought of leaving Dimitri now, he nods, relieved to have a task he actually feels qualified to accomplish. Ingrid and Annette maneuver Dimitri onto the back of Ingrid’s pegasus, and Ingrid takes off into the air without sparing Felix and Annette a second glance. Felix watches them go, feeling suddenly exhausted down to his bones. 

Annette grabs at Felix’s sleeve. “Let’s go talk to Byleth, okay?” she says.

When Felix finally makes it back to the monastery the sun has dipped low over the horizon, casting Garreg Mach Monastery in bright reds and golds. Although he is exhausted, Felix brushes off Mercedes’ attempts to wrangle him into his room and makes for the infirmary as soon as he can. He’s still got dirt and grime and Dimitri’s own blood all over him when he slams open the door. 

Dimitri is awake and sitting up when he arrives, clean white bandages wrapped carefully around his chest and shoulders. He’s writing something, but places it quickly under the pillow when he sees Felix. Dimitri smiles in that warm, gentle way he has of late that makes Felix’s heart thrash against his ribs. 

“Felix,” he says. Felix looks around for the healer, perhaps to delay this conversation for as long as he can, but Manuela is nowhere to be seen, so Felix is left with no choice but to shuffle closer to the side of Dimitri’s cot and prepare to finally make known what has been left unsaid between them for the past decade-and-some of their lives. “Felix,” Dimitri says again, more insistently.

Felix inclines his head. “I’m here,” he says, the tips of his fingers prickling. 

Dimitri gazes at him for a long moment, his eyes still hazy with pain. “Professor Manuela tells me I am going to live.” 

Felix swallows. “So I’ve heard.” 

Dimitri hesitates. “Can I… if I tell you I have something important to say, will you stay and listen?” 

Felix clenches his hands into fists and then relaxes them again. “Don’t be stupid, Dimitri,” he says, “Of course I will.” 

“I– okay,” Dimitri takes a breath, “Okay. I never thought I would be able to say this to you, after everything that happened – I wanted to tell you at the academy, but you seemed to hate me so, and I could never quite get the words out, and then – then, well, hah. But it was always there, all along. Felix, you are the most–”

Felix can’t bear it anymore, can’t stand to listen to Dimitri unmoored like this, can’t watch him hemming and hawing and wringing his hands over something that should have been so obvious so long ago. He grips one of Dimitri’s hands in his, startling him into silence, and says, very carefully, “Dimitri. I love you.” 

Dimitri falters, his eyes widening, “I– what?” 

And then, after a moment, he starts to laugh, a hearty and genuine thing that has his shoulders shaking with the effort of it. Felix frowns and pulls away, crossing his arms. Dimitri stops laughing at this, at least enough to reach out and take Felix’s hands back into his. 

“No, I’m sorry, I, hah– oh, Felix. I am sorry for laughing at you. It is only that I had planned so carefully all the things I wanted to say to you, and you– you just–” Dimitri starts to laugh again, but pulls himself back together quickly, “It is just so very like you,” he says simply. 

Felix scoffs. “To ruin your plans?” 

“To say just what you mean,” Dimitri says simply, still smiling, “to demand the same from me. Of course I love you too, Felix.” 

Felix thinks of the apple. He thinks of Dimitri’s smile upon receiving it, when they’d returned from their ride and Felix had been shuffled off to the infirmary to have the bones in his arm properly set, the wide grin and then the faltering concern when he’d made the connection between the gift and Felix’s injury. He thinks of Dimitri’s scolding, of promising not to ever to something so dangerous on his behalf again, of knowing in his heart he would break that promise a hundred times over if he had to. 

He thinks he knows what Glenn meant, now, about this being what love is.

**Author's Note:**

> come say hi to me on [twitter!](https://twitter.com/exbeekeeper)


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